Bought new pictures

I decided to buy extra pictures so that all the Lord of the Rings phrases icons I made, which I plan to sprinkle around as I make comments. A sampling:



Go here for the rest.

The new default icon, of course is the white tree of Gondor, but it also reminds me of the holy tree in Yeat's poem.

Dinner with Lois last night

at her house. She told me all about her book tour as we ate take out from the Big Bowl. She lost her mother recently, and between that, a recent con and the book tour, she's lost her momentum on her writing but hopes to get back to it now. About six chapters are completed so far. I asked to be allowed to read the next manuscript and she said yes, so I should be getting it soon. She has bought the original painting of A Paladin of Souls and has it hanging on the wall between her dining room and living room. Quite lovely. Then we spent a very happy rest of the night talking about the Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson movie (she's particularly an Aragorn fan, whereas I lean more toward the hobbits) and a particular guilty pleasure that we found out that we both share, much to our mutual delight, and no, I'm not going to tell you what it is. None of your beeswax.

I went on my own to see the 10:30 show of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Oh, wow, I loved it! And all the trailers before it were great, including, I was pleased to see, the trailer for Return of the King. Can't wait.

I so rule

Today I took Delia to her karate lesson, read to the girls aloud from Johnny Tremain, and then took the girls to a puppet show at the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater. Those of you with children living here in the Twin Cities, be aware that they have wonderful children's puppets shows every Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m. from October through March. It's $2.00, but free if you live in the neighborhood. (We're planning to go to their holiday show this year. They're doing The Wild Swans! I have already told the director I would like to purchase one of the swan puppets when the show is over to hang from my office ceiling.)

Came home, washed some (but not all) of the dishes, talked to my mother-in-law on the phone, saw the girls off on a play date to the Science Museum, drove to return the books to the library, then to buy my husband a birthday present, drove to pick up birthday cupcakes (hey, I'm a super mom, but not enough of a super mom to bake a cake), came home and worked out (FIRM: Body Sculpting Basics. That floor lower body section is a KILLER.) Am checking e-mail to weigh in on HPEF board business.

When Rob gets home from work, we will go out to dinner, and then field calls from relatives who are calling to wish him happy birthday.

I bought a lot of huge sheets of paper and colored pens; plan to hold a brainstorming session on the book tomorrow afternoon and then continue transferring files from WordPerfect to Word.

Just don't look at the state of the house.